MacLeod - When I heard the bell : the loss of the Iolaire

This eBook edition published in 2010 by
Birlinn Limited
West Newington House
10 Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
www.birlinn.co.uk

This edition first published in 2010 by
Birlinn Ltd

Copyright John MacLeod 2009

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-84158-858-2
eBook IBSN: 978-0-85790-511-6

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

for my father, Donald Macleod

Dmhnall mac Dhmhnaill ic Mhurchaidh ic
Dhmhnaill ic Mhurchaidh Am Pobair

and the sailors of the Long Island

for my mother, Mary MacLean

Miri nighean Mhurchaidh Chaluim Mhir, mac Aonghais ic
Murchaidh ic Iain ig ic Iain Duibh ic Iain mac an Abraich

and the women of Lewis

for the 284

and in honour of
Henry Allingham
Claude Choules
Harry Patch
and
William Stone
our last veterans
of the Great War for Freedom and Honour
19141919

Raoir Reubadh an Iolaire Murchadh MacPhrlain
(Murdo MacFarlane)

P ART O NE : L OSS

1 The Dark Ship
T HE CONTINUED RESONANCE OF AN UNIQUE DISASTER

2 Tolsta 1917
L IFE AND WORK ON L EWIS DURING THE G REAT W AR

3 A Happy New Year, Commander Mason
A MUDDLE, A SHIP AND A VOYAGE

4 The Beasts of Holm
T HE WRECK OF HMY I OLAIRE

P ART T WO : L EGACY

5 Grief Unutterable
T HE DESOLATION OF AN ISLAND

6 Searching and Impartial Inquiry
T HE QUEST FOR ANSWERS AND EXCUSES

7 My heart is so full of him and my loss of him so great
C HARITY AND MISERY, WIDOWS AND ORPHANS

8 Dead Reckoning
R EMEMBERING, EXPLAINING

Banntrach Cogaidh An t-Urr Iain MacLeid
(Rev. John MacLeod)

T hat was the night after the day after the longest night, the New Year night the children were up and down from the road, up and down, the table spread and the shift of clothes airing and all in readiness for a father scarcely remembered and a husband who would never, in fact, come on this New Year of peace; after the day the stuttering boy ran in, with the elders sombre at his heels, and she asked, Is it true? and they said, Yes, it is true the night before the weeks before the night the cart came from Stornoway with its sealed, tarpaulined coffin, and inside only what was left and which none that knew him could look on... this was the night Dolina had her dream, and her drowned man came to her in the vision of her grief and amidst the rubble of her world and in the exhaustion of her mind, and she said to him, Oh, Iain, Iain, how am I going to manage? And he said to her, his woman now widowed, Well, thats what I thought, too, when I heard the bell.